sorry for taking so long to reply, just finding out whom i did not respond in past posts (you are in good company, and apparently i suck badly at this blogging thing).

yes, customer satisfaction and eventually long-term sentimental loyalty — but is i all about building up to it.

I also think that we are missing large chunks of very interesting data, but we should be able to find ways to do it better if we adopt a cloud model soon… or sonner, rather than later.

thanks for the comments!

as for engineering and business, I would never mix them or confuse them… they re both equally powerful and interesting — but, I do believe that the model of the chunnel engineering works in this particular case… call me crazy (no, not really – rhetorical).

It is interesting that you bring those two elements as opposites: convergence and confrontation. I really try no to see them that way, but I can see how they may show up as potential adversaries. I would prefer to think that the sales processes are run from inside the organization and that the sales people being from the outside are like paid contractors paid to supervise and make sure the chunnel goes in the right direction, etc.

Thanks
Esteban

I really liked your blog post. I think that bringing those two trends together is absolutely essential for a greater customer satisfaction at the end. Social creates a sense of urgency, immediacy and a greater transparency within an enterprise. Furthermore, it addresses and could possibly improve the issue with capturing the organizational knowledge. A lot of information remains unshared, thus it is soon forgotten and lost in emails and drives. An E2.0 should hopefully allow for a greater knowledge retention thus also driving best practices.

Thanks a lot for your comment. Thoughtful and well said.

I am glad someone called out the flat organization as being a key element in SCRM/E2.0. The other missing element, but that works right alongside flatter organizations, is the change in the work module from project to task. This is also a critical component of SCRM since it allows the end-to-end processes to be executed as a series of tasks — much more in line (both in technology and strategy) with how these systems are evolving.

No worries on “shiny, new-thing” syndrome — it too shall pass (I hope) soon enough.

Thanks for the read!

As always, relevant and thoughtful. Here’s how I see it. sCRM is another iteration of a longstanding business problem, which is essentially how does any business enterprise achieve and maintain two goals. 1. Flatten the organization to allow for what are typically siloed and insulated business functions to better integrate on a regular basis with engaged users or customers. Easy to say, hard to do. 2. Better link social marketing initiatives (or simply marketing and communications, which is essentially nothing more than a stated promise) with the businesses operational structure(s), which delivers the promise or makes it possible in the first place (or at least that is how it is supposed to be). Again, very easy to say but much harder to do. CRM, sCRM, E 2.0 or whatever label you want to put on these initiatives is the ‘glue’ which helps to keep the organization moving in a flatter direction, as well as, helps to keep marketing and operational functions in balance. Unfortunately, we live through a lot of ‘shiny penny’ hype of the ‘new-new’ marketing thing, when in reality, these are long standing organizational opportunities or challenges against which we can apply a broader range of tools in the hopes of solving an age old problem; how to be and remain relevant to customers.

Of course, now I am dying to see what you have. I still remember when I first read the BNT links you sent me, how a light bulb went off. I would love to see where that goes in your research and work.

I wish I could go back to my post and add the three points you made, brilliant way to explain the need for the relationship to be highlighted within the organization. I was just having that discussion last night with a colleague on how if we can make the C-levels understand how this works and it is not so scary then we can win this game.

I agree with the way you present it.

Thanks a lot for the read and the encouragement… looking forward to see your research when it is out.
Esteban

Thanks for quoting my favorite saying of all times “automation makes bad processes bad faster, not better”.

I am working on some research on knowledge flows to talk in more detail as to what you are referring above. I think we are just beginning to realize that — and how to define knowledge to make it happen that way.

Thanks for the read!